The Legend Of Dragoon:  Torrent Of The Wicked
by Archangel and Spike
Summary: One Hundred years after the defeat of the God of Destruction, Dragoon Spirits mysteriously resurface. Endiness is plagued by a new breed of evil, unparrallelled by any previous threat.  Please R & R! Chapter Two up.
1. The Twins Fraternal

Authors: Spike and Archangel

Title: The Legend of Dragoon: Torrent of the Wicked

Chapter 1: The Twins Fraternal

A full moon loomed like a spotlight over the market town of Lohan, illuminating the cobblestone streets with a deep blue light, the kind a carefree spirit could go swimming in. It was obviously enough to be described of as dark, but what made Girsham and Falda so worrisome was that it could be darker. Someone could spot them fleeing in the streets on a night like this… two less-tan-carefree spirits, no swimming tonight.

The problem was that on nights like this, after having been gone so long without a decent meal to call dinner, the amount of light wasn't the worst of their concerns. So in that slim and pitch black alleyway they sat, waiting for the last of the stores to close down. Soon the last market closed its door and the lantern was dimmed.

"Ready?" Girsham asked, looking over to his sister.

"Ready to what? Eat?" she chuckled. "Are you kidding?" He heard the slight shake in her voice, he wasn't surprised, neither of the twins could ever shake that nasty feeling. They knew what they were doing was wrong, but they had to eat to live. Unfortunately in their impoverished situation eating meant stealing. Girsham pulled his two daggers from their sheaths around his belt, and heard his sister draw her tomahawk from its sling on her own belt.

The fat merchant turned his back to leave through the door on the other side of the store. This was their chance!

Quickly and lightly the twins bolted across the dimly lit cobblestone street, into the tall merchant building. They kicked at the door, and jumped inside. Just as the merchant turned around to see the noise, he had a knife blade pressed hard on his throat.

"It's nothing personal, pal," Girsham said. "Gotta eat somehow, gotta buy food, you know how it goes." The plump old man was far too frightened with the aspect of dying to say anything audible. They were usually like that. Girsham looked around. "There's a lotta good stuff in here, we'll only take enough to get by, I promise."

"T-take anything, please! Dont hurt me! I have a family!" He continued giving the pathetic speech about what he had to lose and who would lose him, blah blah blah, all the stuff Girsham never cared to listen to. Instead, he looked around to Falda, and watched her fill her satchel with goods, while grabbing food and putting it under her arm.

When she'd grabbed all she could, she tip toed behind the merchant and put her lips right next to his ear.

"This is how to play the game right, gramps," she said coyly. "We leave now, but when you decide to call for help, we'd better be out of ear shot. Because if we're not, and we get guards on us, we'll come back, and give them something cool to arrest us for. You know, something like murder." The merchant shook violently but stiffened best he could at the word 'murder'. Falda let a long pause haunt him for a moment before a very cute sounding "kay?" The twins bolted out of the door. Falda threw Girsham the satchel, and they began the long jog out of the city, under the pale moonlight.

They never heard a scream.

A few moments later, Girsham and Falda slowed down, and Falda tossed her brother a loaf of bread, which he consumed greedily. He started to reach into the bag that held their 'catch', but as he half predicted, his sister slapped his hand.

"Ah-ah-ah, it's bad luck to check the bag before we're totally safe, you know that," she said.

Girsham did know that. Why was he reaching in there? "I know, that was weird."

He decided to let it go, like a bad habit trying to resurface, and let the full bag hang loosely. It would be an hour walk to the old forest east of the town. There they'd hopefully pawn off what they'd stolen, and come into some money for once… maybe things would go smoothly, maybe they'd run into trouble. It was all part of the life.

* * *

Several hours later, with the first peeks of sunlight pushed their way over the horizon, the twins sat leaned over a small, make-shift table from a suspicious merchant.

"I'm telling you, no one followed us, they never do. It's safe to buy," Falda said. Girsham, as usual sat back with his arms crossed, looking dangerous and intimidating. Falda pushed their loot, while he made buyers afraid to say no, the system worked rather well. Girsham just kept his neck straight, with his chin down, allowing his dark brown bangs to partly cover his eyes and nose. The general response to this appearance was a nervous glance every few seconds that told him the sale was going to happen.

Falda, meanwhile, was leaned forward on the table, on her elbows, palms facing the merchant across the bag from them. She kept a confident contact with his eyes, using her own, almost unblinkingly. She wasn't lying, and never gave reason for anyone to think she was with those ice blue eyes. Girsham loved those eyes on his little sister, something that would always keep them together, because it was the most intense physical feature they shared. They were the same height, with the same hair color and shape, but it was their eyes that gave them a sort of insignia amongst their fellow villagers.

The merchant rubbed his bearded chin, and shrugged after a moment (and a few quick glances at Girsham). "Couldn't hurt to look, could it?"

"Name me one time looking hurt someone," Falda said as she grabbed the bottom of the bag and pulled it off of the material, which began to sparkle in the stretching sunlight, enticing the fat merchant. He put his hand in it, and spread it over the table, causing some of the stolen goods to roll off one another. A small, red gem rolled out of a brass goblet, and off of the table.

Girsham looked to Falda. He watched her eyes follow the gem to the ground, she acted like she wanted to scratch her leg, above her boot, reached down and picked up the spherical stone.

She couldn't explain it, the moment that she was aware of that stone, she was unwilling to sell it. She felt like it belonged to her, like she was meant to have it. She caught Girsham's stare, the stare that said "Isn't that going back on the table?"

She rolled her eyes, and ignored him, the merchant hadn't even seen the stone, they wouldn't lose anything if she kept it. He might whine about it later, but he'd understand, hopefully. Out of the corner of her eye she saw the merchant pick up something.

"This is very interesting," he said. She looked to see the gem in his hand and almost jumped. It was almost exactly like the gem she was hiding. It was spherical, with a slit down the center, the only difference was hers was red and this one was a dark indigo color. It looked expensive.

"What!? How did that get there?" Girsham asked, suddenly. He reached over the table, startling the merchant as he siezed the stone from his hand. "Sorry, this is mine, it must have fallen out of my pocket into the satchel."

The merchant looked almost angry at being denied that gem, but let it go when Girsham resumed his threatening stature. To herself, Falda smiled, she wouldn't hear him whining now. They both had a keepsake. She looked down at her little prize, and remarked at how it seemed to glow a little more than it should be in this small amount of light.

* * *

The sun made its usual arc over the Endiness skies, as Girsham and Falda moved to and fro throughout the forest, seeling all but the two gems that they'd pocketed. As the sun met a mirror of the horizon opposite to the one that birthed it, the brother and sister sat upon a high hill in the center of the forest.

Girsham rubbed the gem in his hand, taking note how the stone always seemed to be watching him, with that slit. He looked over and saw his sister doing the same thing. Then between them he saw a fair sized bag of gold pieces they'd collected.

"You'd think we could actually do something cool with all this money," Girsham said. "Move somewhere and start over, if the world were better."

"I was thinking the same thing," Falda said.

The twins had lost their parents in a robbery that turned ugly several years ago. The thieves killed their parents, and left the children crying and with nothing. They turned to the streets for a new family, and had been raised amongst bums and gangs and thieves. Perhaps they'd even encountered the murderers of their parents, but they would never know.

"We never leave Lohan, it bothers me. What if things are better north of this forest?" Falda said. Girsham shrugged.

"We know the layout here, that's what makes thieving for food easy. Stuff could go wrong in a new place; it's difficult to say," Girsham said thoughtfully. He gave Falda a small grin that let her know they were doing it again. Falda was a fiesty, ambitious thing, powerful yet wild, and Girsham was her buffer, a voice of reason, but lacked the ambition to get things done without a shove. They were perfect siblings for each other, and the whole city of Lohan knew it. They were now on the short path to deciding something.

"For once, let's do it, let's just pick up and go someplace new. You said yourself we could do something cool with this money," Falda said.

"It would be risky, and this has always been our home," Girsham said in defense.

"It has, but there are too many bad memories, too many people we've hurt to stay alive, if there's any chance that somewhere else we can get by honestly, I want to go looking for it." Falda said.

Girsham would have shook his head, he would have said no, and he would have change the subject to make himself feel better about keeping his sister safe. But instead he looked down to the gem in his hand, and his mind gradually changed its opinion… "All right, let's go," he said.

Falda's eyes widened drastically. "Really!?"

Girsham nodded and stood up. "You better get us moving before I change my mind…"

The twins pocketed what they had, and for the first time ever, they moved forward without thinking, and contrary to what Girsham always thought it would be like, it felt good.

Author's Note: That's right ladies and gentlemen, we're back! We've been wanting to come up with another story for a while now, but Spike's passion for Legacy from the Ashes died, so we put our heads together and made something totally different, we hope you enjoy The Legend of Dragoon: Torrent of the Wicked. Please Review!


	2. Fate's Deja Vu

Chapter Two: Fate's Deja vu

A few days passed, and Girsham and Falda traveled on dirt roads, and through thick forests, traveling by carriage whenever generosity would allow them to. It was the farthest they'd ever been from Lohan, and were totally clueless as to where they were. Girsham felt uneasy about it, but Falda was ecstatic. She was finally pushing forward, going somewhere.

It even nearly destroyed the awareness that half their money and food were depleted.

Yet as fate would have it that was to become one of their smaller worries as the sun set on the fourth day of their journey northward. They sat on piles of hay in the back cabin of a passing carriage, as the two horses clopped their way into Hoax. Falda stuck her head out of the side of the wagon and looked around.

* * *

"You'd think they'd make a famous place like this look a little nicer," Falda said. Girsham agreed. The two had lost their parents when they were three, and never received proper schooling, but no one, NO ONE didn't know about the Dragoons, who fought the fate given to the world by Soa. Nearly a century ago, seven warriors, weilding the power of Dragons, as told only by what the people of Endiness thought of as legend, killed a god, the god which was 'destined' to end the world. At the end of that campaign, the Dragoons seemed to just disappear. They swiftly wove back into the crowd that sought to deify them, and were never seen or heard from again. No one knew what became of the Dragoons, other than Albert, who married his love, Emille, but it was widely known that he grew old, and senile, and lost his Dragoon Spirit on a walk some sixty years ago.

Hoax was one of the few places that still held testament to the great courage those seven people used to fight fate itself. But one would never know that from the outside. The heavy wooden doors unlocked, and slowly swung open to welcome the carriage into the town.

The twins hopped off the wagon after a quick "thank you" to the driver, and took a gaze around the town, back to back. The town was rather small, mostly absorbed in the barracks that made it evident that the town also served as a fort in times of conflict.

The outside base of the town was nothing more than dirt, packed very hard from constant treading for over a century. The homes were modest, containing the families of the knights on duty. However, this modestly constructed town provided a dim surrounding for a beautiful sculpture along the back wall. The entire piece was made of brass that was obviously shined daily. It was a depiction of the moment that one of the Dragoons, Rose, woke up the spirit of the Red Eye Dragon, and made the young warrior, Dart Feld the first fire Dragoon in eleven thousand years.

It had Rose's figure hanging from the wall itself, in her Dragoon armor, to make the viewer see that she'd been in the air. She had her blade, a rapier, pointed at Dart's chest, but all that was shone was the young man's head, and his outline in a wide, shocked stance. But his body was wreathed in flames, but his expression was quizzical, not a wince of agony, or a scream, that someone would obviously expect to see on someone being scorched by fire. Girsham looked closer, and saw that the fire covering Dart's body had all sprouted from the gem around Dart's neck.

"Wow, somebody spent a lot of time on that," Falda said in awe.

"Someone was a huge fan," Girsham said with a chuckle. "After all, who wouldn't be? The planet owes the Dragoons their lives." Falda shrugged.

"I'd be more thankful if I met them in person," she said.

"Too bad they're all dead then, huh?" Girsham said.

"Yup, too bad."

"Girsham looked around, until he saw a small door with 'HOTEL' scribbled meekly at eye level. He turned to his sister, who was observing the watch tower on the eastern side.

"Hey, let's check in and stay the night," he said.

"You know, we dont have that much money left," Falda warned.

"Yeah, but we'll make due, like always," Girsham said. "We'll have to."

Falda looked thoughtful for a moment, then nodded. "All right."

They checked in and walked into their room, and threw what little baggage they had on the beds. They each grabbed some bread and took a swig of water from their canteens.

"Well I dont know about you, but a warm bed beats the bales of hay and rustled leaves we've been sleeping in the last week or so. I'm hitting the sac for a while. What about you?" Girsham asked.

Falda looked at the bed thoughtfully, then shook her head after a moment. "Nah, I'll wait awhile, I wanna look more around the town. Nothing's happening, right?"

"What do you mean?" Girsham asked, tilting his head quizzically.

"Well it doesn't ring pleasant with me that a town would be so…I dont know…well fortified if it wasn't in any danger. What about you?" Falda asked.

"…I dont think there'd be any danger we wouldn't have heard about in Lohan. It could just be an extension of that statue," Girsham said.

"What do you mean?"

"Like they could be keeping Hoax looking the way it did a century ago, to preserve the style of its greatest moments. Just a guess." Girsham said, flopping down in bed.

Falda looked around the room. There were cobwebs decorating the rafters, and the room definitely smelled old, like rotting wood, somewhere on the floor and behind the walls. Girsham's theory was a definite possibility, but why keep guards on the lookout?

"Yeah I guess I'll just sight see for a while," she said. Girsham shrugged, already nestled into a comfortable little niche in his bed.

"Go ahead, but you're missing out on something very nice," he said matter-of-factly.

"I'll find out about that soon enough," she said. Girsham closed his eyes as she closed the door behind her and passed out immediately…

* * *

When he opened them again there was no light shining through the circular window above the doorway. Through it, however, he saw the blue veil of night and the twinkle of twilight. He smiled. He'd slept several hours, and felt refreshed.

He made his bed, took another gulp of water and walked outside with the canteens, filling them with water from the town well. After placing them back in the room, he walked outside, and scanned the ground level of the fort for his sister. His eyes fell on her own ice blue pair, as she sat on the ground in front of the brass figure.

She'd been sitting there for a half hour, admiring the detail given to the monument. Girsham approached her, and sat down. "It's a really nice sculpture, probably worth a few hundred in gold," Girsham said with a chuckle. Falda elbowed him lightly.

"Yeah. But for one, we dont have the means of getting it away. And for two, it's got to be some kind of sick taboo to steal or desecrate anything pertaining to the Dragoons," she said.

"Maybe," Girsham. "But if we had our own wagon."

Falda elbowed him a little bit harder, and they laughed together. This was nice, this was…

_FLIT!!!_

Directly between them, an arrow struck the dirt, with the feather at the end, covered in blood. The twins bolted to their feet, but saw not arrows coming down at them, but the body of one of the guards. From the tower above them, in the darkness a voice shouted.

"THE UNDEAD!!! THEY'RE HERE!!"

"The what!?" Falda said. Just then, a soldier came out of the house to their left, with an insignia that the twins figured was a symbol of authority.

"Where are they!?" the man bellowed.

"Coming from northeast, Sir! I count thirteen!!" the watchmen shouted.

"Allan!!! We're under attack! Sound the alarm!" the knight ordered into the night. Then he looked around, and saw the twins. "You!! get inside! Now!!"

"What's going on!?" Girsham demanded.

"The Undead are upon us, with all of thirteen soldiers!" The knight said with a curse. They heard a whistle and he pulled the twins out of the open, into a corner.

"You must seek shelter!" he said.

"What do you mean by the Undead?" Falda asked.

"Where have you been!? Something is keeping the dead from staying…well…dead!" he said. Somewhere outside the wall they were up against, they heard screams. "They've been a plague on Endiness for nearly a decade, and what's worse is they're becoming organized!"

"Well we can help," Falda said.

"Can you now? What are your names?" The knight asked.

"Girsham."

"Falda."

"I am Edward Junesporough, Head of the Seventh Knighthood of Serdio. Do you have weapons? I wouldn't typically allow civilians to fight, but numbers are some of the only ways to fend off the dead."

"We have weapons, and we're…experienced," Falda said. Edward gave her a strange look after hearing her hesitance, but disgarded it as a soldier fell before them.

"Take his head off!" Edward ordered.

"WHAT!?" Girsham said.

"If you want to fight for me you have to be able to do that, it wont kill them right off but it will destroy his ability to balance himself if he comes back. Cut his head off or find shelter!" Edward said.

Falda stepped forward, with her tomahawk in hand. She raised it, but Girsham could feel that she didn't want to bring it down on that corpse. He didn't want her to, but at the same time was afraid of the consequences of her not taking action. He remained silent, it was her choice…

Just then three people jumped off the wall, and landed on the ground before Falda, who jumped back in shock.

"How did they do that!? Their legs should be broken!" Girsham said.

"They probably are," Edward said. "I've seen greater injuries be ignored by these monsters."

"Who are you calling a monster?" said the person in the middle. He turned, and Girsham fought the immediate urge to vomit. The man was as tall as he was, but hunched, parts of his face were decayed, revealing rotten muscle, and a few teeth. His eye lids were gone, which gave him the look of a sad sad soul. "We meet again, Edward."

Girsham and Falda looked to Edward, who was awestruck, and speechless.

"D-Donald! No, no not you!"

"Yes, me. Are you surprised? The grave you dug me was so shallow," he said, he raised his sword, and charged at Edward, who barely snapped out of it in time to defend himself. Girsham whipped out his knives, and threw one into the neck of the man on the left. He coughed, and pulled it out, wielding it as he'd had no previous weapon.

Girsham had never really killed a person. He'd injured a few insolent bastards in knife fights in the alleys of Lohan, but nothing serious. He thought that trick would work for him if he ever really needed to take a life…obviously he'd need a little more.

"You must do your best to incapacitate them! If we live until morning we will bury them deep in the ground!" Edward said as he locked swords with the one called Donald. The reference to a deep grave seemed to enrage Donald, so he began to fight harder.

In a second, Girsham was in a world of pain. The undead man that he'd stabbed with his knife had cut him across the chest. Blood began to poor from the wound. Girsham cried out angrily, and stabbed back at the creature.

The man was obviously trained in handling knives. He parried all of Girsham's blows, and suddenly had his hands around Girsham's throat. Thinking quickly, Girsham gave a strong slice the man's hand. The man grunted, and flailed, and his blood dribbled all over Girsham's forehead. Once again, Girsham had to fight the urge to vomit.

Flada was locked in a battle with the third undead soldier, and totally unable to help her brother. No matter how quick she tried to be, nothing was stopping this creep.

The angry undead swung Girsham around with inhuman strength, and threw him clear across the courtyard, right into the statue of Dart Feld. The blood on his forhead ran down his face as he fought to stay conscious, and he found himself looking down ad the blood dripping onto Dart's chest…

It was funny, the now red looking gem resembled something, but he was far too confused to think of what…

Finally, it hit him, as the undead man grabbed his throat with the other hand, and began pummeling Girsham in the gut with his bloody stump, Girsham realized that Dart's Dragoon Spirit looked just like Falda's gem…But could it be?

There was only one way to find out. Girsham did something he didn't believe to be very honorable, but then again, lives were at stake. He planted his boot right into the soldier's groin. That blow still seemed to hold some sway with him, as he cringed and fell over. Girsham picked up his dagger, pointed it at the now surrounded Falda, and shouted.

"Wake up!!! Dragoon of the Red Eyed Dragon!!!"

Falda, and the two undead cornering her for that matter, stopped. They all looked at Girsham, as if he was a fool.

"Did you hit your head REALLY hard on that statue? Because it sounded like you just called me the-"

FWOOOSH!!!!

Suddenly Falda was covered in flames! The heat was nearly unbearable to Girsham, but the undead were flaking away, being in such close range. She flew into the air!

Girsham stared in awe at his sister, watching her blossom into a red suit of armor, with a green reptilian eye in the center. The armor fit tightly, with short paldrons that ended in razor sharp blades, curved upward. There was a red bandanna around her forehead, and under her hair, with what appeared to be five other green eyes, smaller than the one between her breasts. Her biceps were uncovered, but she had red gaunlets that reached up to more spikes on her elbows. The waist down was rather like a battle gown, with hip and thigh guards traveling down to the knee, where they met up with a high heeled boot. Yet the most amazing feature of the armor were what looked like wings. They were spires of red steel protruding from her back, spouting white hot flames, in the shape of wings! She looked at her hands in awe as her tomahawk became bigger, and more fierce, and on her left wrist, a crossbow fired into existence.

Falda shouted out of shock and excitement, and looked down at the two undead that had previously cornered here. Her hands glowed orange, and then white, as she gathered magic, and fired down on their heads. The two soldiers burst into flame, and collapsed on top of themselves, no more.

She looked down to Girsham, and with a sudden shout cried, "You know what this means right!?" She pointed her tomahawk at Girsham. "Darkness Dragoon! Awaken!"

Girsham suddenly felt a pulse of power plow through his veins, so strong it was almost painful. His gem…Dragoon Spirit emerged from his pocket, and plunged into his chest. The power he felt before increased tenfold, as he felt cold darkness surrounding his body, and thickening. It wrapped around his forehead, and around his legs and wrists, and when the darkness subsided, thick yet light armor covered his body. His own wings were orange, and made to look rather translucent, but not of his element. His armor was much the same as his sister's, but tinted indigo, and the gem in the center was brown. He looked to the undead man named Donald, and threw both of his now much flashier knives. They caught him in both sides of his chest as he was preparing to deliver a death blow down onto Edward.

Beams poured out of the gems at the hilts of his knives, and into the gem on Girsham's chest. Beneath his armor, he felt the cut closing and healing, as well as much of his stamina returning.

"Well that's a useful trick," he said to himself. He willed his knives to return, and they did…after cutting Donald several times. He fell to the ground, lifeless.

"Remarkable," Edward said.

Girsham flew up to his sister, and the grabbed hands. Neither one thought much, it was as if they were following the influence of their armor. They began to spin, and the fire of Falda's wings began to spread. Then, out of every crease in Girsham's armor, black smoke poured out, all the while the twins spun faster.

Edward watched as suddenly the twins were wrapped in a maroon flame, and then saw that fire spread out over the entire fort. It passed right through him, but he saw every single undead cringe in fire that seemed to be burning the very souls that inhabited them. When the fire dissipated, there were no undead left…undead.

"Oh, my god," Edward said. The twins landed, and an indigo and crimson light filled the area, and when that light died out, the twins were themselves again.

Girsham and Falda suddenly felt more fatigued than they had ever felt in their lives, they passed out onto the ground together, taking no heed to the dirt, or the blood.

Author's Note: Sorry about the wait, guys. Busy busy busy. What do you think? A century has gone by since Endiness has seen action like that. Is there more in store for Girsham and Falda? You bet! Please Review! It really will make the next chapter come up faster!


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